For the next MBS Xojo Plugins, we worked on including the Vision framework from Apple. Our new vision plugin part (in MacFrameworks) covers the whole framework with all 49 classes and one module for globals. We even include the new stuff coming with MacOS 10.15 Catalina release. All functions can be used asynchronously with delegates for the callbacks. The plugin makes sure those callbacks execute on main thread to avoid threading issues in Xojo.
The Vision framework performs face and face landmark detection, text detection, barcode recognition, image registration, and general feature tracking. Vision also allows the use of custom Core ML models for tasks like classification or object detection.
With Catalina you also get classification, text recognition, attention and object based saliency, animal and human detection.
Since July 2019 we offers a new version of our FileMaker Plugin. Let me show you the new function and how you can use it.
New functions for better working with the MBS FileMaker Plugin
Maybe you have asked yourself how often you use the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Now you can answer this question by using the "Plugin.CallCounter" function. This function shows you how many times you called a MBS FileMaker Plugin function. The call of this function also counts.
For a better debugging of the MBS FileMaker Plugin we developed the “Plugin.InstallSignalHandlers” function. With this function you install the signal handler invoked by the OS when the application crashes. Thats helps to detect what and where exactly is the problem. Usually you call this function only if we ask you to help on debugging a crash on Linux or MacOS. Our plugin then prints a backtrace to show where the crash happened.
New possibilities in debugging
New for the debugging is the Trace.SetErrorsOnly function. If you call this and use our Trace functions you log only the MBS FileMaker Plugin calls that return errors. Whether this option is set can be queried with the Trace.GetErrorsOnly function. With Trace.SetWithTimes the time is additionally logged. Trace.GetWithTimes evaluates whether this option is set.
A helping tool for command line tools debugging is the new Shell.GetArguments function. This function query a list of all arguments of the shell. Use it to look whether an argument that you need is missing.
Test your XML import
For better XML import debugging we offers you the XML.Import.Errors function, which list all errors. It only reports each error once. With XML.Import.ErrorCount you can count the errors. Because of this you can learn, whether you had errors during the import.
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Please visit the Find a Developer website on Xojo.com to submit a job offer or a consultation request. Your job offer is forwarded to a list of Xojo developers, who may contact you for details and make an offer to help.
Looking for work?
If you are professionally working with Xojo as a development tool, you probably already have a Xojo Pro license. With that license comes access to a special forum section for consulting leads, where the requests from the find a developer form above are posted as well as any direct inquires to Xojo's customer support.
An official Xojo Consultants list
We made recently the case in Feedback for an official Xojo consultants list. See Feedback Case 55135. We see the benefits of the FileMaker Business Alliance and would enjoy a similar program for Xojo to increase visibility of the thousands of Xojo developers out there. We tried ourselves to make such a list for Germany, but it needs to be integrated with the Xojo website and accounts.
For example it could be that there is a checkbox in the Xojo account to request being listed on a consulting list, just like the checkbox for the beta program. Xojo Inc. could ask you to provide details for a listing if they accept your wish. By making it dependent on having an active Pro license, they could make sure you can serve all customers as you can use all product features. It may be a good idea to ask for an example of your work to see if you are indeed doing development on a professional level. And if you quit Xojo and stop updating your license, you would automatically be delisted. Great way to avoid having outdated entries in the list.
If you check the FBA requirements, you may see that beside the fee to pay and having a postal address, you need to be one year in business, show customer references and show a sample of custom app work. In the FBA program, you can improve your listing with taking the certification test, but that may be a different topic for Xojo.
Vom 16. bis 19. Oktober 2019 findet die zehnte deutschsprachige FileMaker Konferenz in Hamburg, Deutschland statt. FileMaker Anwender und Entwickler sind herzlich eingeladen sich anzumelden.
Die Veranstalter vom Verein FM Konferenz erwarten auch 2019 rund 180 Entwickler, Anwender, IT-Fachleute und Entscheidungsträger aus Wirtschaft, Bildung und Verwaltung. Rund um über 25 Fachvorträge und Workshops wird es viel Zeit zum Vernetzen in den gemeinsamen Pausen und beim Abendprogramm geben.
Dieses Jahr gibt es wieder eine MBS Plugin Workshop, diesmal am 16. Oktober 2019 von ca. 9 bis 17 Uhr. Anmeldung bei Monkeybread Software.
Just one month left for the early bird offer to XOJO.CONNECT event hosted by Xojo Inc.
Tickets are available for $799 USD till 15th September 2019.
It will be held March 25-27, 2020 in Nashville, TN at the Sheraton Music City Hotel. Registration is currently $200 off full price till 15th Sep 2019 ($799 instead of $999). Please sign up early to get the best deal.
Check out our conference highlights video if you want to see what it's like - or ask one of the many attendees from the forum!
Looking for a conference this year? Join the European Xojo Conference 2019 in Cologne, October 24-25th.
FileMaker itself understands a few text encodings. And with our various plugin formats we offer them directly to use within the plugin. We usually only document the short list: ANSI, Mac, Latin1, ISO-8859-1, Windows, Native, UTF-8 and DOS.
But the following encodings also work: ShiftJIS-Mac, ShiftJIS-Win, Korean-Mac, Korean-Win, Korean-Johab, ChineseTrad-Mac, ChineseTrad-Win, ChineseSimp-Mac, ChineseSimp-Win, Cyrillic-Mac, Cyrillic-Win, ISO-8859-5, CentralEurope-Mac, EasternEurope-Win, ISO-8859-2, Turkish-Mac, Turkish-Win, ISO-8859-3, ISO-8859-9, Baltic-Win, ISO-8859-4, Arabic-Mac, Arabic-Win, ISO-8859-6, Greek-Mac, Greek-Win, ISO-8859-7, Hebrew-Mac, Hebrew-Win, ISO-8859-8 or ISO-8859-15.
But what if you have a more exotic text encoding or an old DOS code page? Like CP865?
After the conference is before the conference.
We are looking forward to meet all the FileMaker developers next year in Nashville.
Claris International Inc. hosts the Claris Engage conference in Nashville, August 3-6 2020.
We will probably attend and have a booth as usual, so see you there!
Please join our MBS Plugin Presentation at 12:00 PM on Wednesday. It's lunch time, so get some food and sit down in the theater for an update on what is new in the MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Come by to our booth, read the posters, ask us questions and talk with us about existing and future features.
We got flyers with our DevCon2019 coupon code for the discount on licenses (20% on everything).
Nickenich, Germany (August 6th, 2019) -- Monkeybread Software releases new versions of their Xojo Kits, powerful add-ons to Xojo with additional functionality provided as source code.
All Kits have been updated to make sure they work in Xojo 2019.
If you have a current license, bought within the last 12 months, you can use the updates for free.
Otherwise you can order licenses on our websites or in the Xojo store as needed.
The webshop offers the iOS related kits in a discounted bundle named iOS Kit Set.
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Please come and visit me in the booth #230 at FileMaker DevCon:
As usual you can come by, read the posters, ask us questions and talk with us about existing and future features.
We got flyers with our DevCon2019 coupon code for the discount on licenses (20% on everything).
MBS Plugin Session on Wednesday, 7th August 2019 at 12:00 PM (noon) right in the theater, so you can bring your lunch and listen.
For years Xojo had three types of paths on the folderItem class:
AbsolutePath For Mac the old MacClassic style for paths with semicolon as divider. For Windows and Linux this is native path.
NativePath, the native path for the OS, so you get the POSIX style path on MacOS. Same as absolute path for Linux and Windows. Introduced with Xojo 2013.
ShellPath, the escaped path for use in shell commands with shell class.
AbsolutePath has been deprecated for a while and may finally go with the next Xojo version. Time enough for us to look through thousands (Sic!) of examples and code snippets to find all places with AbsolutePath. Often we had code like this already:
But it is very annoying to write #If into hundreds of projects.
We got a nice idea to keep projects compiling in Real Studio (doesn't know NativePath) and the future Xojo versions (doesn't know AbsolutePath): Via plugin we add NativePath for Real Studio. All our projects can use NativePath and compile in older/newer versions.
So if you have AbsolutePath in the projects, it may be a good idea to replace it! Same for PathTypeAbsolute.
We extended our hotel contingent for August, so you can still get a few rooms for Dorint Hotel.
Monkeybread Software is pleased to announce the European MBS Xojo Conference in metropolitan Cologne, Germany. We meet in the lovely Dorint Hotel in the center of Cologne. The hotel is in the city center and in walking distance to the main station. Beside our two conference days we have accompanying social programme with our dinner event and optional two training days. For the evenings we have casual get-together in the hotel bar or beer garden.
To give you an update, we have already over 50 attendees signed up from 15 countries:
🇩🇪, 🇬🇧, 🇳🇱, 🇫🇷, 🇨🇭, 🇺🇸, 🇬🇷, 🇸🇮, 🇦🇹, 🇮🇹, 🇺🇦, 🇪🇸, 🇯🇴, 🇧🇪, & 🇨🇦.
The schedule:
Oct 23rd: Xojo Training in English
Oct 24th: Conference, first day with dinner event
Oct 25th: Conference, second day
Oct 26th: Xojo Training in German
Registration is open. Attending the conference costs regularly 699 Euro plus VAT, including food and beverage in the Dorint Hotel as well as an accompanying social program.
Sessions are to be held in English. Our conference is conceived as a networking event for the Xojo community. The conference is an ideal opportunity for sharing your thoughts and your own development experience with fellow users and developers.
We printed posters for our booth at the FileMaker DevCon 2019 about what's new in the MBS FileMaker Plugin:
If you have questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. See you at the booth!
We rebuild the the DynaPDF library for iOS, so you can use the current version of DynaPDF with your FileMaker iOS SDK apps when using the MBS FileMaker Plugin.
We include four variants in our download:
DynaPDF for iOS Device 64-bit for device
DynaPDF for iOS Simulator 64-bit for simulator
When building your iOS app, just include the dynapdf framework file in the frameworks folder inside the app and call DynaPDF.Initialize in the start script passing the framework name and your license key.
The result should be OK if everything worked. If you get an error message including "mach-o, but wrong architecture", well you did copy the wrong framework file.
PS: You may need to change the version number in the framework for iOS to a 3 component number (4.0.30 instead of 4.0.30.86). And for testing on your own device, please make sure the framework has your code signature.
When loading our plugin for Xojo on MacOS 10.15 Catalina, you may have seen such a dialog.
We now made a notarized version of the download: MBS-Xojo-Plugins193-notarized.dmg
This plugin download is notarized. We removed a few old examples with compiled code, but otherwise the same.
We hope to be able to notarize all downloads in the future for our 19.4 release to avoid friction.
When loading our plugin for FileMaker on MacOS 10.15 Catalina, you may have seen such a dialog.
We now made a notarized version of the download: MBSFMPlugin93-notarized.dmg
This plugin download is notarized. But it misses the iOS parts as you can't have currently iOS frameworks in Mac software notarized.
We hope to be able to notarize all downloads in the future for our 9.4 release to avoid friction.
Salman (Notarize apps for…): Thanks Christian I logged… Christian Schmitz… (Notarize apps for…): Login to Apple Website an… Salman (Notarize apps for…): I am trying to notarize m… Christian Schmitz… (How to use XL fun…): Please see example script… Maksym Petrusenko… (How to use XL fun…): how do i write format or … Markus Winter (NativePath vs. Ab…): Nice one! Thanks! Christian Schmitz… (Code Signing File…): No try needed and guess.
… David Sparrow (Code Signing File…): Dear Christian, I’m getti… Christian Schmitz… (Calendar access i…): Not much.
Seems it works… siglinde müller (Calendar access i…): any news o this?
siglin…
Since July 2019 we offers a new version of our FileMaker Plugin. Let me show you the new function and how you can use it. 
Looking for someone to hire?
Vom 16. bis 19. Oktober 2019 findet die zehnte deutschsprachige 
New in this prerelease of the 19.4 plugins:
Nickenich, Germany (August 6th, 2019) -- Monkeybread Software releases new versions of their Xojo Kits, powerful add-ons to Xojo with additional functionality provided as source code.
We extended our hotel contingent for August, so you can still get a few rooms for Dorint Hotel.
We rebuild the the DynaPDF library for iOS, so you can use the current version of DynaPDF with your FileMaker iOS SDK apps when using the MBS FileMaker Plugin. 
